Transformers Prime: Nor Live So Long
by Tal Galfeld
Summary: Not one Cybertronian has stepped on Earth in four years. Elsewhere and far away, their planet is being rebuilt; those left behind have but the memory of their Autobot comrades. Jasper returns to normalcy, Jackson Darby works for his country, and everyone lives as they shall. But like a tumbleweed, ragged travellers stray into town, and the tedium established will not last forever.
1. x Prologue, Part One

**x. Prologue, Part One**

* * *

_Shit._

_Shit, shit, shit, shit,_ shit - !

* * *

The sky was pink above, and darkish-brown was the ground below. The tracks were like a skeleton, minimal and dust-covered where they lay - another part of the landscape. Still, they were serviceable, and in the haze of his concussion, he had heard another train rattle by. Slowly, carefully, he turned on his back; every part of him screamed, and his teeth clenched as he hissed. Sticky iron was clogging his nose, and he spat something metallic as he coughed, trying to breathe. Something within him ground and cracked, his lungs straining beneath purple-bluish, pounded skin.

_God...damn..._

He was hurt bad. Not even getting shot down in California had been as bad as the fall. The train was racing along too fast, and they were trying to wait for it to slow. Kicker had gone - gone and said, "Fuck it!" and jumped anyway, just _barely _clinging to the side of the speeding metal death trap. Micha had screamed - it was more a string of angry cursing - and then jumped on after him, crying out louder. The kids had panicked, but one by one, they'd gotten on all right. They were all right, and that was what mattered, and Kicker always took good care of them.

Then there had been Emer. She was trying to be strong, and she was _very_ fucking strong, but she wouldn't have made the jump. Her skin was peeling in several different places, her Irish skin having been burnt to a crisp. She was damn near dehydrated, and she huffed and wheezed like a dying smoker. It had hurt his momentum, no doubt, but he had thrown Emer at the train, snatching her and tossing her like a javelin. Kicker had yelled in surprise, grabbing her; Micha jumped back, giving her a dirty look. If things had gone her way, they would have abandoned Emer at the Nevada border, leaving in the middle of the night so she wouldn't follow.

He had tried to catch up. He had stumbled, and fuck, he'd pulled something in his ankle. He still tried to jump, and by the grace of God, he had managed to cling. His fingers began to slip, but Kicker had grabbed and fumbled for him, getting a hold of his wrists. Emer had called out his name - she sounded so hoarse, she was worse than he thought - and tried to grab to, pulling back along with Kicker. Her arms were weak from the journey, and she had nearly slipped, dragged towards the door by momentum. Leaping for him had nearly made Emer fall out.

Kicker caught her out of reflex. His arm had flailed back and shoved her, and the two brothers - Coby and Bud - had caught her; Kicker turned his head to look. Their leader's one hand wasn't enough to keep a grip, and the sweat on his palm was like oil. Gone was Kicker's grip, and he turned his head back, only to see one of his best friends reaching out in a last, vain attempt. One of the girls had screamed, and the youngest of them, Lori, had poked her head out from around the door.

They had gone over a bridge as both of the boys lost their grip on each other. The fall, he guessed, was around fifteen feet, though some of it was broken by breaking through the sharp, ragged side of an outcropping. A small, glinting brook gurgled beneath the stream, and he only heard it now as he came to. The babbling flow was faint in his dizziness, and he could swear that it carried some of Kicker's trailing yell. It was the last thing the badly-injured adolescent knew before he blacked out.

Carlos Lopez turned on his side, coughing again with a groan. The metallic taste was fresher and more noticeable - he was too dizzy to panic, but he knew that was _bad_. His weary, blurred vision tried to focus in front of him, and he saw what looked like water over stones. Everything beneath his hips felt wet, and his shirt was soaking through, too.

_This is bad._

* * *

_This is an unofficial piece of fiction written solely by a fan. Transformers is owned and copyright to Hasbro and its creators. __The only things in this fiction that are original content, belonging to me, is the text you're reading and a few characters._

_- Tal_


	2. xi Prologue, Part Two

**xi. Prologue, Part Two**

* * *

_No._

_No, no, no, no, _"NO!"

* * *

Her nails were bitten down to their quicks. Her face was sticky with drying tears, which came down in a torrent as if a river. Every joint hurt to move, every part of her skin ached and cracked, covered in flaking patches where the flesh wasn't feverishly red. She rocked back and forth, away from the others; the cool of the Nevada night was soothing. For almost two days straight, she had felt nothing but pain, and the heat from Kicker's campfire made it worse.

She couldn't stop thinking about Carlos. Couldn't stop thinking about how he had looked, that last desperate look on his face, before smashing into the side of the embankment like a ragdoll. Nobody knew how steep the drop was, but Kicker guessed at _least _twenty feet. The kids had cried from it, too; they were asleep now, dreaming fitfully.

Guilt was gnawing at her. Once again, she had tried to help, lunging for her best friend and trying to drag him in. In pain-induced clumsiness - born from having almost a full-body sunburn - she had nearly fallen out of the speeding train herself. Kicker had caught her, but he had let Carlos go in the moment. She had been responsible for many, many bad things in the group's existence, but this was, by far, the worst.

She killed him. She had killed the one member of the group willing to vouch for her. She had killed the one boy who knew how hard she tried, who helped her when she lagged behind the others, who knew she did what she could to support everyone in her "family". In their pack, she was the omega wolf, and the thought terrified her as much as it hurt her.

What made the fear worse were the _looks _Micha was giving her. Micha, the top bitch of everything, even Kicker to an extent - her dark, near-black eyes were smouldering like the fire. Disgust, hatred, annoyance, barely-restrained wrath: all of it crashed down in a subtle wave, and the slightly-older woman could act on it. The group had bore witness to her takedowns of burly brawlers twice her size and, in an incident involving a bar brawl and a stolen ID, strike a man with a chair hard enough that his head split. She had bashed him and bashed him and _bashed him_, all because he cut open Kicker's lip with a punch, and didn't stop until his skull was seen. His _actual fucking skull_!

The girl let out too loud of a cry. Micha shot her a look purely vile, opening her mouth and taking a breath like it was a hiss. "Shut _up_, Emer!" she snarled, every word colder than ice, colder than the desert could be at night. She grabbed a rock and winged it at the Irish-American's head, the stone bouncing off soundly. Emer bit back a yelp, for she didn't want to wake the kids, and she deserved everything that was going to come. Emer was damn close to pissing herself at the thought of Micha and her alone during the oncoming day - but she deserved it.

There was a rustle of cloth and a light snort. Both Micha and Emer's eyes went to a figure, approaching the fire in a lazy shuffle. Olive skin having tanned dark, a messy head of chestnut-brown hair sticking up everywhere, Kicker had woken and was approaching Micha. Her suddenly-wary expression, complete with eyes tense and wide as a surprised rabbit's, softened immediately into a lover's smile. As he slowly sat down, still stiff and tired from travel and emotion, Micha went to embrace him. Her arms were like liquid, fluidly slipping around his chest and shoulders as she pulled him into a kiss.

"Morning, lover," she murmured, almost dreamily. It was a stark contrast to the vitriol she had shown Emer, giving Kicker the other half of two extremes. To Emer and any stranger, she was as unapproachable as a wild stallion; to her boyfriend, she was passionate and kindly, almost obsessively so. Kicker seemed to find something sexy in how doting she was, or perhaps he found it a relief from the harsh reality of the world around them. Life was not kind to the living, and even more unkind to the homeless in general.

"Mornin'," Kicker slurred, nuzzling Micha back. He gave a quick few kisses up her neck, eliciting a rather feminine giggle from his girl. He smiled at her, everything heavy on his mind seeping into what was supposed to be a happy grin. He looked over at Emer, and somehow, the action made him worse to look at. Emer awkwardly smiled back, provoking a very quick, very sharp look from Micha.

"Good...good morning, Kicker."

Her voice was still very hoarse, and tense with pain and fear. The choppy, jolted words, almost choked out by the young woman, made Kicker frown. Emer curled further up into a ball, looking away and fighting back the urge to break down again.


	3. xii Prologue, Part Three

**xii. Prologue, Part Three**

* * *

_Pace, pace, pace, pace._

_Pace, pace, pace, pace, pace - "Jack?"_

* * *

Pacing had become a habit of his. He paced when his grades didn't come back right; he paced when he waited for someone to pick up the phone. He paced when his mother had a bad day at work; he paced at the thought of police cruisers at his school. He paced and he paced and he paced, even when his mother called to him, knocking on his door when he kept silent.

"Jack? Jack, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," came the clipped response. His eyes didn't rise from his feet, bare and thudding against the wooden floor of their remodeled house. He had to thank one William Fowler for that; it had been a birthday present to his mother, and by extension, to him. Everything from the walls to the floor was stripped bare, construction crews toiling day and night while parent and son stayed at Fowler's house. The entire process had taken three months, and they had only moved back two weeks before.

Rafael Esquivel had been missing for three days. His parents had not seen him, the only thing left being most of his room and a note. He had said he was going out to test some of his racecars - he hadn't touched those in years. He had not been at the rebuilt Jasper High, though that was to be expected - Raf had gotten into the habit of skipping school. Though he didn't take company with people like Vince had been, the characters he'd taken a shine to weren't to be trusted. One was known for carrying around and dealing weed, and the other had broken windows in Jasper's only church. The remake of an antique, delicately crafted, stained-glass window of Saint Peter now had a hole through the First Pope's face.

_(And God, how long had it been? How could Vince have turned around so fast, taking up the badge and joining Jasper's police force? From what Jack could remember, the police were the last thing Vince had wanted to associate himself with in high school. Maybe that stint at boot camp was more miraculous than some would've assumed...)_

Jack Darby let out a frustrated sigh, glancing over at his cellphone. Fowler was looking into Raf's disappearance as well; he combed the nearby wilderness for any sign of the sixteen-year-old. The former Army Ranger knew the area like the back of his hand, and anyone could find a Latino in a haystack, it was him. Updates had been promised, but he hadn't called since the first day of searching, and Jack's patience was coming to an end. If someone couldn't be found within the first forty-eight hours -

No. No, he could _not _think like that. Raf was a smart kid; adolescence hadn't been kind to him, and nobody had expected him to rebel, but he was smart. The little bastards that he chummed with were in for questioning, and claimed that they had done nothing to cause Raf to disappear. All the footage and tests showed that they were telling the truth - Jack wanted to believe them, but couldn't. Jasper was a small town, and word got around fast; the punks had been on everyone's radar for a while. He wouldn't put it past them to bait Raf into doing something stupid.

And yet, despite the part of him _committed _to the idea they were guilty, part of Jack felt disgusted. How could he think that about Raf, one of his few good friends despite their age differences? They had saved worlds together, in the most literal sense; since the Autobots had departed, their companions had stuck together like glue. Even when Miko returned to Japan, unable to refuse because of her age, they had kept in close contact. Rafael's absence was like a hole in a wall - unsightly, unnecessary, and something that couldn't be forgotten about.

He had to remember there was still a chance. He had to keep reminding himself that, though the odds had slimmed, there were still odds in the search party's favour. Raf would come home, probably get grounded by his parents, and then Jack and him would have a nice, long talk. They would talk about what was really bugging Raf, about how he found it hard to talk to anyone, and then maybe talking to Jack's mother about getting Rafael counseling. That helped with troubled youth, didn't it? Finding someone professional to talk to about how they felt?

But Raf could talk to Jack. He could always talk to Jack. Jack treated Rafael well, and tried not to be as overbearing and inattentive as his family seemed. As Raf had put it, there were too many people in the Esquivel family for everyone to be heard at once - the drawbacks of having three generations now living under one roof. Especially now with Pilar back home, and Raf's new niece crying in the wee hours of the morning, everyone was on edge. What was a sense of loneliness and being less understood had probably reached its breaking point. There had been a growing worry in Jack's gut for a while, though it was away with the reason that Raf would ask for help before the worst happened.

The twenty-one-year-old groaned in frustration, rubbing at his forehead. His phone beeped, and he snatched it with a desperate grab. Fumbling to flip it open, he stared at the screen for a few moments, expecting to see Agent Fowler's number. **"LOW BATTERY"** popped up instead, in bright red text that rhythmically flashed to white.

_Piece of shit..._


	4. 1 - Blood Sport

**1. Blood Sport**

* * *

It was the beginning of an already-long day for Officer Vince Raider. From within his cruiser - parked discreetly out of sight behind one of Jasper's many rock formations - he sipped at an extra-large cola from KO Burger. The car's air conditioning was but a brief reprieve from the sweltering heat of the Nevada summer, and, had he the choice, he would have been at the station that day. His partner didn't look better; Officer Allison Lucas's blond hair clung to her in sticky, disheveled strands, her hair-tie having snapped. She'd brought only one with her on their stakeout - Vince had already chewed her out for her lack of forethought. At least _he_ had the idea to keep his ginger hair cut short ... with a meagre scruff at the back he considered growing out into mullet.

He _knew _he was getting bored when the non-sequiturs started popping up in his head.

Looking over at Officer Lucas, he muttered, "See anything yet?" before rubbing at his sweat-covered, weary face. The heat shimmer on the road ahead of them was starting to give him a headache, but he didn't want to look away for too long. Allison muttered a negative, shaking her head as she licked her chapped lips.

"Nothing," said the policewoman, tone borderline scathing. "This is fucking ridiculous, Raider - they _know_ we're watching the highways for their shit. What makes the Boss think we're going to catch a pack of street racers in broad daylight?"

"Because they've fucked up once, and there's a good chance they'll do it again," said Vince. "Not all of these guys are subtle. A lot of them are kids with too much time on their hands and not enough shit to do; God knows you and I went through that phase. A few of them get a kick out of seeing if they can hit 200 before the police catch up with them."

"And this doesn't have anything to do with the accident on Westbound Road, does it?"

Vince clenched his fist a little. His teeth gritted, bearing themselves ever-so-slightly as he stared ahead. Allison took her eyes off the horizon, glancing at Vince for a moment before going back to her watch. It had been a bad crash, the Westbound incident; Vince had been one of the first people to respond. A white sports-car had T-boned a mini-van that had run a stop-sign, and neither of the drivers had time to blink before all that steel connected. The right half of the car was unrecognizable, and everyone on that side had either been killed by - or died from, however long that took - the impact. The occupants on the other side were knocked unconscious, and Vince hadn't been able to speak when the backup had arrived.

And the less said about the sport-cars driver, the better. All Vince had been able to choke out were two words: "They moved." Allison was told the racer had survived, but died later in hospital from the trauma. The body was transported to Las Vegas further south, where he had been originally from; the family wanted him buried there. The case was open-and-closed, and a lawsuit was in the works between the racer's relatives and whoever had survived the crash he had caused. All of this, just three weeks before, and Vince was hunting down the kid's friends like he was a bloodhound.

Allison had repeatedly insisted Vince take time off. He had taken two days' leave, and had returned stomping to his desk, words terse and clipped to everyone he spoke to. He'd gotten a little better, but Allison and him had known each other since they were children. The cocksure, "let's-waste-this-dick" attitude that her partner had boasted was quickly being replaced with something cold and subdued. Some might have thought it more professional, but Allison was unnerved by Vince's darkened demeanour.

The buzzing thunder of insane horsepower got both their attention at once. The two cops looked over to their left, just in time to see two blurs tear past in a cloud of dust. One was lime-greenish, the other a silvery grey - two cars often spotted at the illegal rallies held after dark. Allison grabbed the radio and squawked coordinates, Vince stuffing his cola into a spare cup-holder as he hit the gas. Sirens blared and blazed to life, and in a flash of red, blue and black, Vince's cruiser roared to life and tore forward. The dirt road below them ground and spat grit, a huge plume rising up like smoke from an out-of-control bonfire.

With a swerve that left skid marks, Vince turned onto the highway and pealed after the racers. His look was one of cold focus, though some might have said it was downright murderous. Dispatch rattled back over the black radio - backup was already on the way, and Vince was to pursue the pair and try to get them to pull over. The chances of that were slim to none, but after Westbound, little patience or tolerance was left for the adrenaline-fueled tons of steel. Either the racers would get the _fuck _off his highway, or Vince would drag them back to his precinct, kicking and screaming if he had to. There, they would get the coldest, darkest cell he could arrange for, accusations of police brutality be _damned_.

That being said, he had to keep a handle on his vengeful thoughts. His anger was slamming into his gas pedal, he himself threatening to overshoot the racers in a fit of rage. The pair was swerving and swinging every which-way, constantly throwing dirt and gravel into Vince's view. He and Allison lurched back and forth, banging against the sides of their seats and doors as they tried to keep pace with their targets. This wasn't their quarry's first high-speed chase; they had turned onto a snaking road lined with large stones and cacti, a death trap if there ever was one. One wrong turn, and the police car would go spinning into oblivion, smashed into pieces by the unrelenting Nevada terrain.

"Dispatch, this is Car Three! Suspects are south-bound on Ragman Road, possibly planning to take Eastbound back to the highway!" yelled Allison, voice breaking slightly as Vince took another turn. "Dispatch, do you copy?!"

"Loud and clear, Car Three," the calm voice rattled over the radio. "ETA in ten minutes; hang tight."

A resounding _bump_ shook the car, Vince and Allison jumping up a little in their seats. Gritting her teeth, Allison yelled back into the radio, "They better fucking be!" before slamming it back down. She hadn't meant to sound so aggressive, but her nerves were razor-thin with the area they were driving through. Every time they came too close to the roadside, the car feeling like it would lose its steering from too extreme a move, her heart skipped. Her knuckles were white as she stared ahead, trying to see through the grey-brown clouds that were trailing away.

"How the fuck are these kids staying on the road?!" growled Vince, voice strained from the hyperfocus he had on the blacktop in front of him. "They're twelfth-graders, not Formula One drivers!"

"We're not always out here, remember?!" yelled Allison. The rushing blood through her ears made everything sound distorted, and the roar of the engines was _not _helping. "They've probably used this road a thousand fucking times already! Keep your eyes on the road, dumbass!"

"I AM!"

Another tight turn, and they were on Eastbound. The cruiser actually skidded five feet off the road before Vince spun it back around. Allison's stomach was in her chest, flopping to her feet before bouncing up again; she was going to be sick. The mix of heat, panic and adrenaline, combined with the forces acting on the car, were giving her a serious case of nausea. She wanted to roll down the window and stick her head out, but Vince nearly clipping a saguaro made her think otherwise. Her fingers gripped the handle of the car door and the armrest beside her; she swallowed hard, ignoring the taste of bile building up, and glanced at the rearview mirror for other cars.

"Vince," said Allison, somehow managing a calm tone, "Vince, we're going to run out of gas at this point, we only had half a tank - "

"WE ARE _NOT_ SLOWING DOWN!" bellowed Vince, the loudness startling his partner. Her heart nearly stopped at the sheer anger, at the sheer _volume _of what he had just said. "These dumbasses are going to fucking kill someone! If we don't stop them before they get back on the highway, the speed they're going at is going to wreck the shit out of anything they come into contact with! I'll be fucked before I let them get away!"

"Car Three, this is dispatch," the radio prattled off. "ETA is now fifteen minutes, what is your position?"

"FUCK!" screamed Vince, taking yet another turn with enough force to nearly flip the car. Allison cried out, her head swinging hard to the left before bouncing off the passenger window. She hissed and clutched at the side of her skull, a throbbing pain already accelerating away from the point of impact. Vince looked over at her, half-choking, half-restraining a curse as he glanced back at the cars they were pursuing.

"You all right?!"

"I'm fine!" snapped the other cop. "Keep your eyes on the road! The last thing we need is to get into a crash oursel - "

The frantic screech of metal was inevitable. The resounding _bang _of a blown tire was followed by the silver racer fish-tailing, skidding left and right as he tried to pull away from his brightly-coloured partner. The lime-green vehicle pulled ahead and kept going, trying to outrun the spinning loser in their great and dangerous game. He pealed into the distance, a neon bullet that shot down the rest of Eastbound and headed for the highway. He flew over the nearby train tracks, temporarily forgotten by his pursuers; Vince turned hard towards the passenger side, Allison smacking her head again as they spun in avoidance. Vince's cola sloshed from its container, splashing his leg and nearly making him let go of his brake in shock. The silver racer was swerving straight for them, skidding to the side as the youth tried to regain control.

In a moment of blinking, the car smashed into a boulder, flipped over it, and bounced into the Nevada shrub with a crash of glass and metal. He tumbled like a weed, the car coming to rest at the edge of the gully that the tracks were beside. It looked like he might catch himself on the rusted rails - there was a tense moment as the car seemed to pause - before a couple more, half-hearted turns sent the car tumbling. Into the brook below he went roof-first, falling at least fifteen or twenty feet into shallow waters. There was a great and last _ker-RUNCH _of material, smoke rising from the below as dust began to settle.

A desert wind blew, helping carry away some of the obscuring grit that hung in the air like drapes. Vince and Allison were panting, the side of the latter's head swelling from a purplish bruise that was forming. Vince swallowed hard, glancing down at his now-spilt cola, then back at the road. His eyes held onto the rising greyish-white in the distance, all that was left of the lime-green racer as he abandoned his friend to his doom. The officer's eyes trailed over to the gully, taking a moment to process what had happened.

"...Fuck."

He took a sharp breath, raising his fists and _pounding_ them against the wheel.

"_FUCK!_ Fuck, fuck, _FUCK!_"

"Jesus, Vince...!" snapped Allison, biting back a groan as she rubbed her aching head. "Will you calm the _fuck_ down already - "

"We almost had them!" cried the man, his voice edged and a near-screech. "We almost fucking _had them_! And then this little son-of-a-bitch goes and gets his fucking car wrecked, and the other fucker doesn't try to stop - "

"Vince!" his partner yelled, trying hard to keep any pain out of her voice. If Vince saw the mark on her, she'd never get him to settle back down. "Vince, the kid just fell twenty feet! Come on!"

Before Vince could protest, Allison was already out of the car and running towards the gully. She had been there a few times in her youth; though most of it was steep, the edges crumbling and difficult to climb down, there were a few shallow paths where one could half-walk, half-slide. Even in her slight dizziness, Allison was still able to coordinate herself to get down, nearly tripping upon "landing" below. Vince caught her before she could fall forward into the river, its usually-clear waters tinged with black as oil flowed from the wreck.

Both officers had to hold their noses as they approached. Allison felt even more nauseous with the smell of burnt rubber and crumpled, wrecked Bugatti; Vince's mind was flashing back to Westbound at the scent. He made a choking noise that Allison swore was a sob, but he strode forward and marched to the car. He gingerly walked around it, trying to get a view of what had happened to its occupant; all he could see was a bloody splatter and a badly-smashed window. Going towards the driver's side, Officer Raider peered in, trying to steel himself for what he might see.

He swore something incomprehensible, and had to pull away. He staggered past Allison, bending over and dry-heaving into the riverbed. He spat a couple of times, gasping for air before turning back around to look at the vehicle. Vince couldn't bear to look at the wreck; he had to stare at his feet, barely registering Allison's quiet, "Oh, Jesus..." as she glimpsed the body of the driver. What had once been a cocky, adrenaline-addicted seventeen-year-old was now a human paste, the roof and sides crumpling in and squashing him. His face had imploded, his brains hanging out of the sides like grey-pink, gory decorations, and he'd nearly been decapitated by the roof crushing him. Parts of his torso were popping through his steering wheel, a piece of his ribcage broken and hanging out, like a blood-covered stick bleached by the desert. Allison began to shake, and she looked over at Vince, saying not a word.

The two officers stared at each other, the silence pregnant with feelings they could barely describe. They had attended to wrecks before, but both had only been on the force for two years. Vince already had the mental stain of the Westbound accident; it was Allison's turn to have an, "Oh, _fuck no_," moment on the job. She blinked and coughed, making a gagging sound as she staggered off to the side, placing a hand on the gully wall to support herself. Vince's gaze went up the opposite side, stopping at the border between dirt and sky.

His eyes began to burn, the harsh sun above painfully white. The man rubbed furiously at them to get rid of the spots, turning around to see how Allison was doing. He froze at the sound of a groan, Allison's head jerking to the right as she looked around the rest of the riverbed. Both of their eyes came to settle on a crumpled, darker-skinned figure, surrounded by loose gravel and face-down in the dirt. There were patches of dark red that stained the soil around him, not to mention the yellow shirt that was also soaked with brook's water. It took less than a second for Vince to run over to him, gently beginning to check the second boy's injuries and their extent.

"Kid!" snapped Vince, his voice now a strained bark. "Kid, can you hear me? What's your name, kid?"

Another groan, and nothing comprehensible. Vince dared not move him, taking a hand and feeling along the boy's neck for his pulse. It was so weak, the throb of the vein barely registered under Vince's fingers, and he muttered a tense, "Shit,"as Allison bent down beside him. She reached for the boy as well, only to have her hands slapped away by her partner's.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" snapped Vince. "Go back to the cruiser and tell them we one dead! EMTs, rescue, fucking _something_, Allison!"

His partner didn't argue, running back to the car without another word. Vince gently put his hand by the living boy's mouth and nose; he was wheezing, and the breaths were short, agonized gasps. Little flecks of red appeared on Vince's palm, and the officer almost lost his composure at the sight. The silver driver never took passengers; he always went solo, never even letting his girlfriend get in his car. Then again, the back windows were as tinted as what was legally allowed, so they could have always missed someone. But how the hell could he have missed that?

"It's going to be okay, kid," said Vince, leaning down so the youth might hear him better. "It's going to be okay. Help is on the way. Just keep listening to me, just focus on my voice; we're going to get you out of this, okay?"

Another harsh wheeze from the boy. It was louder than the others, as if he was trying to form words, but it could also have meant that his condition was getting worse. Panic spread across Vince's face like a storm cloud; what if the medics didn't arrive in time? What if the kid stopped breathing before they could get him a stretcher? The officer was too wound to tell how fresh the boy's wounds were, but if he was thrown from the car, it was likely that he had broken his chest bones and spine. Any CPR could do more harm than good.

_"ALLISON!"_ Vince bellowed, his voice tinged with fear. He going to be responsible for a second casualty if nothing was done. "Where are those EMTs?!"

Nothing. It was likely she was occupied with the radio. The kid was still breathing - everything was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. He just had to continue administering first aid, follow his training, make sure the boy didn't go into cardiac arrest -


End file.
